#class solidarity

[ecrivainsolitaire]

Reblog or repost

[prettypleaseignorethis]

Every service worker in Gotham knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman because those are their only two customers who pay for a $2 coffee with $100 bills and say keep the change

[bethanythebogwitch]

I want the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike to go beyond Hollywood. I want UPS workers to strike. I want teachers to strike. I want trash collectors to strike. I want every necessary worker to strike. I want the people of this country and beyond to finally stand up to billionaires and the awful treatment of workers. I want the people who do the work to get their share and I want the uber-rich to be taxed for almost all of their money. I want a goddamn revolution.

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

I love you writer’s strike, I love you pending UPS strike, I love you worker solidarity, I love you collective bargaining, I love you fair compensation, I love you disruption of capitalistic ideal, I love you labor laws, I love you fights for higher minimum wage, I love you unionization, I love you the growing awareness of class solidarity, I love you lower profit margins for better pay

[bunnieismyname]

i personally cannot bring myself to actually watch the video, so uh

[joshuaorrizonte]

Help me save my home?

Hello! I'm ebegging again.

Through a series of royally fucked up events, I am underemployed, have been for a while, and haven't received a dime from unemployment. I'm waiting on my claim, but in the meantime, taxes on my childhood home, which I live in with my husband and my elderly, widowed, disabled father, are coming due Nov. 1.

We do not have this money. It is $1350. We have MAYBE $500 saved up, through no fault of our own. This town pulls the sheriff's sale trigger on homeowners who don't pay taxes QUICK.

I am looking desperately for a job that will pay the bills. I have three interviews this week. I can't hang my hat on getting a job fast enough. I need help. Please, if you can't donate, signal boost. I'm desperate.

Paypal: joshua.winterslight @ gmail.com

[whereserpentswalk]

The middle class isn't a thing in America. It is a concept created by capitalist society to describe workers whose labor struggles society can completely dismiss any validity of. But there is not middle class in any material way.

[alpaca-clouds]

Understanding Class Solidarity

Prewriting this and putting it in a queue. Is Hollywood still striking?

Well, does not matter. Because I gotta talk about another important thing when it comes to leftist thought. Another thing that the capitalist system has kinda managed to very successfully distort. The concept of class solidarity.

See, no matter whether SAG AFTRA and WGA are still on strike when this is going up, the entire issue has shown this - though of course it also has kinda helped some more people to understand this, too.

Because the first reaction of many people upon those folks going on strike, was: "What are they complaining about? They are Hollywood! Hollywood is where the money is!" This was especially true for when the actors went on strike, because we kinda associate actors with being rich. Because we usually think of the likes of a Chris Hemthworth or a Scarlet Johanson, who get like millions per movie where they show up. But people obviously forget that most actors are in fact some random background faces, who barely scrape by. The big actors going on strike, too, is in fact a form of class solidarity.

See, capitalism has told us that the classes are like the middle class, the upper class and the lower classes. And, sure, yeah, those are kinda classes as well - and classism is very much based on this. On the economic standing of people and the marginalization of poor people is very much real.

BUUUUUUUT...

You know what the entire marxist theory says about the classes?

Yeah, there are only two. There is the owning class and there is the working class. And it turns out, that even quite a few of those multimillion dollar actors are in fact still working class, as they do not own the companies in which they make their money. And yes, note, some do. There are a couple of big wing actors who do in fact own the production studios they work under. But this is not true for all or even for most.

And here is the thing: The difference between the owning class and the working class is, that the working class works and actually produces value, while the owning class profits off that generated value.

That is also why the saying goes: "Every profit is stolen wages." And this is true, no matter whether the worker makes 25k a year, 100k, 500k or 3m. If they are the worker, they are almost by necessity exploited. Just that some get exploited a ton more.

To keep it with the film studios, because it is a nice example to have.

Who really made it possible for like Avengers Endgame to bring in 2 billion bucks. Was it Bob Iger (or Bob Chapek)? Or was it like the directors, actors, costume makers, set makers, camera people, technicians, CGI creators and what not? Who really did generate that value?

And understanding that is the core to understanding class solidarity.

The system right now is very interested in people not realizing it. That we actually all do have more in common with other workers, than we have with the owning class. That if we just all went on strike, that the owning class would loose everything.

The average person with their 40k/year office job does have more in common both with the B-List actor, who might make a couple hundred thousand per movie, AND with the black trans 20 something homeless kid working at Starbucks while living on their frined's sofa.

Because all three of them do not own the fruits of their labor. All three of them have their life dictated by people who own whatever they are working for.

Class solidarity is to understand this and to stand side by side with everyone who is striking and fighting for their right to get treated fairly.

[enbycrip]

The enemy doesn’t arrive by boat. He arrives by limousine.

[boof-chamber]

Why am I having so much trouble finding naloxone? I’m working on building a harm reduction network in my neighborhood and I was able to find a way to get inexpensive pipes, test strips, and other supplies, but I cannot find any affordable way to get enough Naloxone to distribute.

[ecrivainsolitaire]

The Open Art Guild Project: a proposal to empower collectively owned art

Over the last few decades we have seen the degradation of copyright, the blatant manipulation of intellectual property law in order to monopolise wealth and the exploitation of artists in favour of an economy of artistic landlordship: massive corporations holding the prole artist hostage to their increasingly unoriginal library of content produced not to encourage creative enlightenment, but to hold on to properties that ought to be already in the public domain. The capitalist owns the IP, so the capitalist keeps getting richer, while the artist is more and more oppressed, overworked, underpaid, scammed out of their rightful intellectual property, deplatformed, and automated away whenever possible. This is unsustainable, and the arrival of new technologies for digital art automation has overflowed that unsustainability to its breaking point. We cannot continue down this path.

The Open Art Guild is my proposal to remedy this. This proposal consists of two main parts: a copyright standard, designed for the fair distribution of income and the collective ownership of intellectual property; and a distribution platform, planned to empower artists big and small to profit from said intellectual property without being under the thumb of corporations or fighting one another under senseless infighting caused by bourgeois class warfare. The artist should not fight the artist over ownership of rights. The big artist should not see the small artist as a threat, nor should the small artist see the big artist as an obstacle to their own growth. Through mutual empowerment, both may prosper.

The Open Art Guild License

The Open Art Guild License is built upon the current Creative Commons 4.0 License. This license is irrevocable until the work qualifies for public domain according to all relevant legislations, provided that the artist remains a member of the Guild. In order to participate in the Guild, an artist shall follow the following precepts:

The artist shall only publish works under the OAG License that have licenses available to the public. This means public domain, open source, Creative Commons and works created by other members of the Guild. Works derived from privately owned media, such as fanart of intellectual properties not part of the Guild, shall be excluded from the Guild. If the artist did not have permission to use it before, or if the artist only has individual permission, the work will not qualify for Guild submission.

All works created under the OAG License shall be free to adapt, remix, or reuse for other projects, even commercially, provided that the artist doing so is also an active member of the Guild, that the projects derived from it are also under the OAG License, and that the artist follows through with their dues and obligations.

Whenever the format permits, the artist shall provide the assets used for the works in their raw form in a modular fashion, including colour palettes, sound assets, video footage, code, screenplays, subtitles, and any other elements used in the creation of their work, in order to facilitate their reuse and redistribution for the benefit of all other artists.

The artist waives their right to 30% of the total profit generated by works submitted to the guild, regardless of where it is published. This revenue shall be redistributed in the following manner:

10% shall be designated towards the maintenance of the Open Art Guild platform. In absence of a platform that follows the requirements to belong to the Guild, this percentage shall be donated towards a nonprofit organisation of their own choosing dedicated to the protection and distribution of art in any of its forms. Some examples may include Archive.org, Archive Of Our Own, Wikimedia, or your local art museum or community center. Proof of donation shall be made publicly available. The artist shall empower the Guild, as the Guild has empowered the artist.

10% shall be designated towards the Open Art Guild legal fund. In the absence of a fund dedicated to the protection of the OAG, this percentage shall be donated towards a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the protection of the legal rights of artists in any of their forms. Some examples may include Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Industrial Workers of the World, or another artist union like the WGA. Proof of donation shall be made publicly available. The artist shall protect the Guild, as the Guild shall protect the artist.

10% shall be designated towards the Open Art Guild creator fund. In the absence of a fund dedicated to redistribute the profits of the OAG, this percentage shall be donated to other members of the Guild, prioritising small creators. Alternatively, it may be directed towards the recruitment of new members to the Guild via donation and an invite. Proof of donation shall not be required, but the receiving artist(s) is(are) encouraged to declare in their own platform that the donation was received. The artist shall give to the Guild, as the Guild has given to the artist.

The artist shall continue to create Guild submissions for the duration of their membership, with a minimum of one submission per month in order to guarantee their continued support. The artist shall live off of labour, not property.

In return for these duties, the artist shall receive:

Permission to adapt, remix, or reuse any of the works in the Guild’s archive for their own derivative works, fan fiction, remixes, collages, or any sort of transformative application, provided dues and obligations are in order.

Protection of their intellectual property as part of the collective works of the Guild by the legal fund designated and sustained by all paying members, to prevent non Guild members from trying to exploit their works unauthorised.

If an artist strikes a deal for non-Guild adaptation, the proportional dues shall also be paid to the Guild fund and members by the non-Guild institution in charge. Said deal shall not be allowed an exclusivity clause, and all works derived from a Guild work shall follow through with their dues in perpetuity. If the non-Guild entity chooses to terminate the business relationship, all intellectual property rights over the adaptation shall irrevocably be granted to the Guild as compensation, guaranteeing the distribution to the creators and the legal fund, as well as the follow-through with whatever payment terms the Guild artist has agreed to.

No Guild artist shall prosecute another Guild artist for use of works under the OAG License, provided that the derivative work also follows the OAG License terms. If these terms are violated, amicable resolution shall be sought by both parties. If litigation becomes inevitable and compensation is required, said compensation will also require the 30% dues to fund the Guild and its members, no matter which way it sides. In no case shall an artist, Guild or non-Guild, be left without recourse.

If an artist becomes unable or unwilling to continue to pay their dues, the artist shall be given an option to suspend or cancel their membership. If a membership is suspended, the artist will be excluded from the creator fund until their dues are renewed. No compensation shall be required of the artist for the suspension period, and all protections other than the creator fund shall still apply. If a membership is cancelled, all works published by the artist under the OAG License shall automatically be granted a Creative Commons 4.0 License instead, in order to protect Guild members from litigation by non-Guild members.

Membership that has been cancelled shall be renewable at any time, provided that the former Guild artist has not engaged in predatory litigation against Guild member or the Guild itself. The Guild shall determine what constitutes predatory litigation on a case-by-case basis. Licenses that were lost during cancellation shall not be given back, as CC4.0 is irrevocable, but new works shall still qualify for OAG Licenses.

These protections shall not be conditional to the artist’s moral values or the content of the works created. All works that do not break the laws applicable to the jurisdiction from which they were submitted shall be treated with the same respect and granted the same rights and obligations, in perpetuity and throughout time and space within the known multiverse. The Guild shall not exist to police art, but to promote it.

Open Art Guild License Template

All submissions of Guild works and projects shall include the following legend, both in English and in the publication language when applicable. Point 4 may be omitted if the artist chooses not to submit the work for dataset training.

This work was created and published under the Open Art Guild license, and has been approved for reuse and adaptation under the following conditions:

For personal, educational and archival use, provided any derivative works also fall under a publicly open license, to all Guild members and non members.

For commercial use, provided redistribution guidelines of the Guild be followed, to all active Guild members.

For commercial use to non Guild members, provided any derivative works also fall under a publicly open license, with the explicit approval of the artist and proper redistribution of profit following the guidelines of the Guild.

For non commercial dataset training of open source generative art technologies, provided the explicit consent of the artist, proper credit and redistribution of profit in its entirety to the Guild.

Shall this work be appropriated by non Guild members without proper authorisation, credit and redistribution of profit, the non Guild entity waives their right to intellectual property over any derivative works, copyrights, trademarks or patents of any sort and cedes it to the Creative Commons, under the 4.0 license, irrevocably and unconditionally, in perpetuity, throughout time and space in the known multiverse. The Guild reserves the right to withhold trade relations with any known infractors for the duration its members deem appropriate, including the reversal of any currently standing contracts and agreements.

[guiltyidealist]

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

Listen. LISTEN.

I need to be clear.

I love movies. I love TV. I made a living as a film and TV critic for like a decade before going back to school. Narrative is literally my life. It’s the only thing that continually and consistently makes sense to me. I love this shit.

I don’t give a fuck if the strike lasts for a decade. I don’t care if the business of entertainment is ground to a halt so long that the whole thing crumbles to ashes. I don’t give a fuck if none of the shows I watched in the last year get a next season. I don’t give a single scintilla of a shit if any of the movies I was looking forward to in the next year or two get cancelled forever.

The people who bust their ass to make the narratives that bring me so much emotional and intellectual joy should be able to eat and provide housing. And I don’t mean whoever the current big star is. The woman who plays Girl At Table and the man who plays Guy In Elevator are integral parts of the tapestry. And they need to eat. They need to live.

If those people can’t live then I don’t need movies or TV. If studios want to use digitally created background actors then I don’t need movies or TV. If producers want AI produced screenplays then I don’t. Fucking. Need. Movies. Or. TV.

The men and women who have spent their lives creating works that have brought my such profound joy and even, for a time, employment are my literal fucking heroes, and if they need to burn the structure down to ensure they can continue their existence then so be it.

If that means the shows and movies I love get cancelled so be it.

If that means the industry is never the same so be it.

Fuck the studios and fuck the executives.

[themadcapmathematician]

Sometimes I'm struck with the fact that there are people out there who really think you aren't "real poor" if you didn't grow up poor. Like not having money is more like a cultural identity to win arguments with than a tangible reality that people find themselves navigating, something that just happens to people all the time every day

[lastcatghost]

You can't demand a service, while also disregarding the humanity of those working to provide that service

[lifehacksthatwork]

This is a life hack to help all of us. Help out your fellow workers. Below is the website plus github link for anyone wanting to help out.

https://changeisbrewing.org/ 

https://github.com/SeanDaBlack/ChangeisBrewing